Took personality test on computer, didn't finish.
Received email from company asking me to finish, so I finished.
Received a telephone call from recruiter, saying that my personality test indicated I would make a good fit for the company, and was encouraged to apply. So I did.
Applied online, entered regular job history info, etc. and also wrote a couple essay type questions, asking why I would want to work in the industry, etc.
Was contacted a week or two later about having an informational meeting, that I had been selected to move forward in the application process.
Had a face to face informational meeting with a veteran advisor in the area. Was provided by Jones with a set of questions which I should ask. I also had my own questions to ask.
At the close of the meeting, the veteran FA told me that I should think about what location I would like for my office, that I would soon be offered a job.
Had a telephone interview using a behavioral anchored rating scale. Knowing what I know now, the way to answer the questions which will give you the highest score is to:
1. Provide a specific instance from your past where you encountered what the question was about
2. Describe what the problem was
3. Describe what you did to solve the problem
4. Describe the outcome
For instance, if the question is "tell me about a time when you had to work with a number of people to accomplish a specific task" (And that is one of the questions) The answer would be
1. When I was the manager of the waffle house, I was tasked with organizing the regional waffle cookoff to be held in our town's convention center.
2. I had to bring together managers of our other seven waffle houses to identify their top waffle cooks, as well as coordinate with the local convention center and our food suppliers, also bringing in various media outlets to publicize and coordinate the program.
3. I utilized my head cashier and assistant manager to coordinate the schedules of the other cooks, as well as to schedule weekly planning meetings, and regular updates. I made a schedule to follow, and a checklist, etc... blah, blah, blah...
4. The event went off as scheduled, and has now become an annual national event and I have been promoted to national vice president of waffle production and promotion.
If you listen to the question they ask, and respond by actually answering the question using the format above, you will very likely pass the interview. The interviewer actually has a set of printed questions followed by essentially a checklist asking if you answered each part of that format above. If you answer each of those four parts, you will receive on the behavioral anchored scale a top candidate score, and that is what they call it. There are only three categories, unqualified, qualified, and top candidate.
Following that, if you pass, you are asked to conduct a prospecting test (I forget what they call it). You will be asked to go door to door, speak with people, and get their name, phone number, and permission to contact them in the future. You are given the choice of naming how many people you will contact. You are expected to have at least 15 I think. I made the mistake of saying I would make 25 contacts as I thought if I did more I would be more likely to get the job. In reality I don't think anybody really cares. You are expected to have 50% residential and 50% business contacts. It takes a surprisingly long time to get the names and phone numbers of strangers, and this process is really pretty humiliating. People will ask you who you work for, but you can't say. I personally was surprised at how many of the people I encountered actually spent time talking to me, and how much information they gave to me.
One of the final phases is the face to face interview. A veteran financial advisor conducts the interview. The veteran FA also has a printed set of questions to ask, and he (or she but it's a really phallocentric industry) will ask each of them. The veteran FA will also ask you for the list of people you talked to. I don't think they check it, and you could probably put down random names and telephone numbers and they wouldn't care. Of course you might run into somebody who actually checks the names and numbers, who knows. I don't remember any of the questions I was asked, but they were similar to the telephone interview, except the veteran FA did ask me quite a bit about my expected compensation. He also told me that one of the questions he had to answer was if I looked honest.